Mastercard is to debut its Payment Passkey service in India, bringing biometric authentication to online shopping.
The service is initally being rolled out as a pilot with some of the India’s largest payments players, including payment aggregators such as Juspay, Razorpay and PayU, online merchants such as bigbasket and leading banks such as Axis Bank.
Payment passkeys are a response to rising fraud levels in the use of one-time passwords (OTP), which are increasingly vulnerable to online scams such as phishing, SIM swapping and message interception. In India, the incidence of fraud cases has surged by nearly 300% in the last two years, as reported by the Reserve Bank of India’s Annual Report for 2023-2024.
Banks in Singapore have already moved to phase out the use of OTPs in favour of digital tokens for bank account login after at least $14.2 million was stolen from customer accounts by phishing scammers in 2003.
Mastercard's Payment Passkey uses device-based biometric authentication methods such as fingerprints or facial scans and tokenization to secure a consumer’s online checkout interaction, ensuring that the transaction is secure and no financial account data is shared with third parties - rendering it useless to fraudsters and scammers.
“By introducing the Mastercard Payment Passkey Service in India, we’re advancing secure online checkout and our vision for a token economy,” says Jorn Lambert, chief product officer at Mastercard. “Through innovative technology that enhances security and convenience, we’re creating a more transparent commerce ecosystem for all. As we continue to lead the way in digital payments, our commitment to achieving a tokenized future is stronger than ever.”
Following the initial pilot program in India, the company is set to roll out the service to more consumers and financial institutions around the world over the coming months.